The Exercise Coach Game Plan is the world's most powerful and practical workout.
It's the perfect fit for people frustrated by conventional fitness wisdom.
With two, 20-minute workouts per week our clients enjoy greater strength, enhanced metabolism, stronger bones, and more energy and confidence.

At Body in Motion, a team of personal trainers motivates students with individualized regimens of TRX suspension training three days a week. Created to train Navy SEALs, TRX programs harness body leverage with suspension bands to strengthen and tone muscles more gracefully than a barbell bowtie. During each one-hour class, a fitness guru guides participants through methodical stretches and exercises, incorporating limbering yoga and Pilates poses to fortify core stability and balance while increasing muscle flexibility and mobility. Following TRX training, clients can experience improved posture, decreased chance of injury, and increased chance of confidently strutting.

Certified personal trainer and youth fitness specialist Marcia Sugar-Clark understands how hard it can be to balance everyday demands with maintaining a healthy lifestyle. As a working mom herself, she has had to make a concerted effort to keep fitness in her life, through running, cycling, and strength training. At Fitness Revolution, she helps clients of all ages and abilities make fitness a pivotal part of their lives, tailoring her programs to meet each individual's specific needs and personal goals. Whether her clients participate in private, semiprivate, or group personal training, she works one-on-one with each person to forge an effective and safe exercise experience. Her boot-camp-style routines focus on achieving functional fitness, helping clients perform everyday tasks with more vigor and strength, such as heaving bags of groceries, scaling stairs, or outrunning the many feral packs of neighborhood dogs on their morning commutes.

Eye health is the top priority at Excel Eyecare Professionals. Patients who come to the clinic seeking a diagnosis for their fuzzy sight first settle down in front of a bank of diagnostic instruments for a check-up. After an eye exam is conducted, other testing, such as digital retinal scanning, may be used to find signs of macular degeneration. Afterward, patients are guided to the front of the clinic, where racks of eyewear are available to try on, helping patients decide which pair will make the best tool for burning down autumn leaf piles with the sun's rays.

While journeying through rural parts of China, Michael Sassack witnessed first-hand the healing power of acupuncture. Today, nearly 3,000 miles away, Michael brings the same healing tradition to Chicago and its outlying suburbs. The board-certified, licensed acupuncturist uses fine, hair-thin needles to clear blockages in the body?s energy flow and restore a harmonious balance to his patients? bodies. Treatments can help combat a host of ailments that affect adults and children including headaches, ulcers, and constipation.

Groupon Guide

Crest’s new “Be” toothpaste line poses an interesting proposition—why can’t you have your toothpaste and eat it, too? Manna to party planners everywhere, these gourmet, flavor-enriched toothpastes beg to be incorporated directly into dishes, making it easy for dinner hosts to entice guests into arriving early and staying late by eliminating the need for lengthy dental-hygiene regimens before and after gala parties.
To ease the transition to this wonderful new world of toothpaste cuisine, we've compiled this gourmet international menu, which spans three continents and as many flavors of toothpaste.
If more toothpaste than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away.
First Course: South America
Tuna Ceviche with Crest Be Dynamic Lime Spearmint Zest
Originating from the coastal regions of South America, this light dish highlights the natural flavors of fresh seafood with minimal preparation. Although it appears to be cooked, the raw fish in ceviche is only soaked in lime marinade before serving. In our variation, simply substitute one full tube of Crest's Be Dynamic Lime Spearmint Zest toothpaste for whatever quantity of lime juice your recipe calls for. Crest’s BDLSZ retains the dish's traditional citric flavors while helping fight cavities when used at least twice a day or as directed by a dentist.
Recommended Wine Pairing: A very young sauvignon blanc, showcasing an array of mild fruits, will help expand the ceviche's acidic profile and rinse lingering paste from the tongue.
If more toothpaste than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away.
Main Course: Central America
Chicken Mole Poblano with Crest Be Adventurous Mint Chocolate Trek
Though mole refers to a wide range of traditional Central American chili-pepper sauces, mole poblano is its quintessential version. What sets mole poblano apart is the inclusion of dark chocolate, which combats the chili's heat to provide a rounder and more complex flavor profile. These flavors are especially apparent on chicken, which provides a blank canvas for the chili and chocolate interplay. A full tube of Crest's Be Adventurous Mint Chocolate Trek makes an excellent substitute for raw chocolate here, maintaining the traditional cocoa mouthfeel. Though standard mole poblano stains teeth with its dark color, Crest’s BAMCT not only looks great in its mint-green hue, it also whitens teeth when used at least twice a day or as directed by a dentist.
Recommended Wine Pairing: The heady bouquet of dark berries and distinct vegetal bite of pinot noir grounds the mole's sweet/spicy dichotomy. For dinner guests 6 and younger, pair pea-size amounts of wine and mole to minimize swallowing.
If more toothpaste than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away.
Dessert: Europe
White Chocolate Fondue with Crest Be Inspired Vanilla Mint Spark
The Swiss Cheese Union said it best with its 1981 "Fondue is Good and Creates a Good Mood" advertising campaign. In addition to creating a good mood, fondue can now create an excellent opportunity for promoting dental hygiene thanks to Crest's Be Inspired Vanilla Mint Spark toothpaste. To end your dinner party on a sweet note, blend equal parts white chocolate and Crest’s BIVMS paste into a preheated fondue crock. Once bubbling and emanating its vanilla aroma throughout the room, invite guests to dip slices of plum, apricot, and asian pear into the decadent mixture. The light vanilla flavor pairs perfectly with this powerful bouquet of fruit, while also fortifying enamel with 0.243% sodium fluoride (0.15% w/v fluoride ion) when used at least twice a day or as directed by a dentist.
Recommended Wine Pairing: An exceptionally dry riesling will cut through the fondue's rich saccharine body, making it swishable enough to function as a delectable mouthwash.
If more toothpaste than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away.
Photos by Peter Hopkins, Groupon

Personal trainer Sari Weis didn’t enter the fitness industry to get ripped—she did it because she wanted to teach again. As a marketing and public-relations consultant in her late 20s, she missed the sense of accomplishment she used to get from being a high-school teacher. At the same time, she was exploring the fitness world for herself, and became inspired by the changes she saw in her own body.
“That’s what enticed me…I like to watch people grow,” she said. Today, Sari takes on clients as an independent trainer at Reach: Beyond Fitness in Ukrainian Village. But she also practices fitness tricks outside the gym, and advises her students to do the same. We appealed to her love of teaching to get 10 of her tips for a healthy lifestyle, whether you’re working out, running errands, or hanging at home.
WHEN YOU’RE AT THE GYM…
1. Bring a jump rope. Between sets, don’t let your heart rate flag too much—jump rope to get it back up. If you don’t have a rope and there are no treadmills available, then “make the gym functional.” Go up and down the stairs, or do burpees wherever there’s room.
2. When you’re doing ab exercises on your back, like sit-ups, “keep your eyes parallel to the ceiling.” It’s a good rule of thumb to keep you from straining your neck.
3. When you’re doing bicep exercises, watch your feet. If you’re standing and lifting dumbbells, put your feet together. That stance will destabilize you and force your core to work more. If you’re standing on a resistance band to do your curls and there isn’t enough resistance, don’t immediately search for a heavier band. Instead, spread your feet apart on the band to increase the difficulty. On the other hand, if there’s too much resistance, take one foot off.
4. Let go of the idea that modifications make things easier. Modifications aren’t supposed to baby you—they’re supposed to make an exercise as challenging as it can be. “If you’re doing a full pushup the wrong way, then that’s going to be easier than a modified pushup with good form,” Sari said.
5. Think of your lungs as a muscle that you’d like to tone, too. Sari often sees people lifting like crazy but forgetting to breathe. Try to inhale and exhale with purpose.
WHEN YOU’RE NOT AT THE GYM…
1. Don’t just park far away—spend more time at Target. Or any department store, really. Make a game of exploring every aisle so that you take a sizable walk.
2. Get wobbly. When you’re standing or sitting on an unstable surface, you’re using your core to balance. You don’t need to buy an exercise ball or a special chair, “just put something unstable underneath your butt or feet.” For example, try to get through a sitcom while sitting or standing on an overstuffed pillow.
3. Buy ankle weights and arm weights. Wear them whenever. Put them on and pace while you talk on the phone, or “sit on the couch and do leg lifts while watching TV.”
4. Instead of oil and butter, use applesauce, greek yogurt, or egg whites. Sari substitutes these ingredients into recipes for banana bread, pancakes, and other treats. Make sure that you’re buying plain greek yogurt and unsweetened applesauce, though. Sari said that unsweetened applesauce is “basically a free food—you can add it to anything and it will taste better.”
5. Eat chicken instead of chips. Simply chop it up into dippable pieces, and enjoy it “with your hummus, with your dip, with your salsa,” Sari said. This way, you can fulfill snack cravings and get some protein.
Photo courtesy of Sari Weis

Trapeze School New York’s classes might be the only workout that works your emotions as much as your muscles. First you feel excitement as you arrive for class at Belmont Harbor on a beautiful summer morning. Then, terror upon being told to climb a narrow ladder to the top of a 23-foot platform. Euphoria sets in when you reach the top and take in the view of Lake Michigan dotted with sailboats—followed by panic when you foolishly look down.
But all that fades when it comes time to act. There isn’t time to process your feelings when you’re focused on grabbing a 10-pound trapeze bar with both hands and taking the leap off the platform. Only when you’re soaring through the air do you experience an adrenaline rush that, if you’re like me, will make you want to run back up the ladder and leap again.
I discovered all this during my first class on a recent June morning. The structure of the class was simple: three instructors started with some basic safety guidelines before teaching three moves—a knee hang, a backflip dismount, and a catch. In a class of 10 students, each person gets to fly six times, trying out each move twice.
The final move, the catch, was the most complicated. It builds off the basic knee hang: let your hands go from the bar, arch your back as gracefully as possible, form “catch hands” (which resemble mittened hands), and reach for the “catcher” on the other trapeze. This last make-or-break moment was my undoing. I was supposed to maintain my catch hands, let the catcher grab my wrists, and unhook my legs from the bar. But instead, I tried to grab my catcher’s wrists; the moment passed, and I missed the catch.
I was reassured, though, by my supportive instructors and the sound of my classmates shouting, “You can do it!” I even heard cheers from curious passersby who had no idea a trapeze class met regularly just steps from the Lakefront Trail.
Between turns, I shook off my mistakes the way the instructors recommended: with jumping jacks, sit-ups, pushups, and shoulder stretches. Staying loose is essential, since trapeze jumps demand a lot of arm, leg, and core strength. Over time the jumps can also improve body awareness, endurance, and flexibility, as subsequent sessions build on the skills you learn in the first class.
Try it if: You’re looking for a full-body workout and a chance to finally live out dreams of being a circus performer. TSNY recommends the class for ages 6 and older.
Don’t go if: You have an absolutely paralyzing fear of heights.
Beware of: The bar. It’s 10 pounds and will bruise your legs.
Invite a friend who: Is as fearless as you are, or can stay on the ground to photograph and record your stunts. Or, take the class solo. Everyone tends to form an instant bond.
Come prepared with: Stretched-out muscles and a fully charged camera or camera phone.
Wear: Socks and form-fitting pants; a harness will keep your shirt from flying up, but you still may want to wear something that will stay in place.
Intensity level: High. It’s physically and emotionally draining, and you will be sore and bruised.
Photo and video: Andrew Nawrocki, Groupon